Daylight in Alvin School

“Overall it’s great – the kids definitely enjoy having natural light in there,” declared William Teal about the sunlight now streaming into the ceiling of his science classroom. “It’s just a much more natural feel.”

Teal is a science teacher with Alvin Junior High School in Texas, who has benefited from his classroom’s recent retrofit with rooftop tubular daylighting devices. While he appreciates the look and feel of the new daylighting system installed in his science classroom, what really sold Teal was the Texas-sized thunderstorm that knocked out a transformer leaving the school without electricity. The entire school went dark, except for Teal’s classroom. In fact, the rooftop daylighting system is even “high velocity hurricane zone” approved.

“Lightning struck the transformer and the lights went out,” explained Teal. “We had enough light in my room — still with it being overcast — my kids kept working.”

When CMTA, the school’s the consulting engineering firm, helped Alvin Junior High School test the retrofit of a tubular daylighting device (TDD) in Teal’s science classroom, the engineering firm was already a leading national advocate for daylight harvesting.